We Are All Conscious Manifestations of Light
by Dragon Elexus
Summary: "It would be utterly illogical for Gem 'souls', as some human philosophers have called daemons, to be bound to the shape of a single Earth life-form." So Gems don't have daemons, and Steven and his daemon Aster know that's okay, really! They just wish they had other daemons to play with, to cuddle, to explain what shape they're meant to be...


**We Are All Conscious Manifestations of Light**  
 **Chapter One**

It was evident from the moment she was created that Pink Diamond was defective.

 _It was her size, of course, so small compared to all the others. They told that didn't matter; she was still a Diamond, still had a Diamond's mind, still had a Diamond's power, and that's all she needed to lead. But she could sense the dishonesty in their words, and feel it each and every time they refused to take her seriously._

 _That's why Pink never told them about her_ other _defect._

 _That, and the fact it took her a long time to even notice it was there. After all, as far as she knew,_ ** _everyone_ **_saw the universe filled with ever-shifting currents of golden light._

 _But the times she mentioned it, off handedly, no one knew what she was talking about. The lower Gems wouldn't say anything, only giving her polite, baffled stares. But Blue would give her that patronising smile and Yellow would say, "Stop being silly, Pink, and focus."_

 _But it could be so_ hard _to focus with all those shifting, shimmering lights everywhere!_

 _The brightest lights were gems. Not_ G _ems, the entire being, but the_ core _of their being. That golden light congregated so thickly around those stones that often Pink had to struggle to see their true colour underneath._

 _Next brightest were Gems' actual bodies (and_ of course _she had been confused, with all the scrolls saying those were just constructed of hard light!)._

 _Next brightest was all was Homeworld itself. The buildings, the space ships, the warp pads, even those boring, tedious reports._

 _But outside of Homeworld and its colonies, everything was just… dark. The vacuum of space was simply that. And in that emptiness, the only thing that could match a gem's brightness were stars, and that was just the ordinary kind that anyone could see._

* * *

It was quiet in the van which was the Universe family's home, the rain drumming comfortably on the roof, making it feel wholly warm and comfy inside. Steven was splayed out on his belly on the bed, propped up on a pillow to read the picture book in front of him. Aster, still unsettled as all children's daemons were, lounged on the boy's head in the shape of a meerkat. She would help sound out the words he was having trouble with.

Dad was in the corner of the van, reading his own Grown Up Work, while Dame lay at his feet, humming wordless tunes under her breath.

"Daaaad," Steven said, after he'd decoded the current page. It showed five people, grown ups and kids, each of them with an animal at their side or in their arms or on their shoulders. "I have a question."

"What's that, kiddo?" Dad asked, glancing up.

Steven held out the book, and read out, slowly and deliberately: " _Everybody has a daemon_."

"That's right. Good job," said Dad.

"It is true?" asked Aster.

"Yes, it is," said Dame, as Dad nodded.

"But what about the Gems?" asked Aster.

Dad and his daemon paused, and looked at one another. Aster hopped off of Steven's head and turned into a snake, her tongue flicking curiously.

Almost everyone they knew had daemons. Dame was a Newfoundland dog, all big and brown and fluffy. Sadie's Herief was a dog too, a mastiff almost as big as she was, while Lars's Allie was a spider monkey. Mr. Smiley had a bumblebee, Jamie the Mailman had a riflebird, and Mr. Fryman had a big furry pig.

But Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl didn't have any daemons at all.

"W _ellll_ ," Dad said, eventually. "The book is right. Everybody _does_ have a daemon. Just with the Gems, you can't see them."

"They're _invisible_?!" exclaimed Aster, fluffing up into a kitten. "Can _I_ go invisible?"

"That would be so **cool**! Can go invisible too?" said Steven. The pair of them squeezed their eyes shut as they tried.

Dad chuckled.

"Not like that," said Dame. She rose to her feet, stretched, then came over to the mattress, picking up Aster gently in her mouth. Aster squirmed a little, but didn't protest when Dame set her down between her doggy paws. "We mean, the Gems' daemons are hidden inside them."

Steven sat up and poked his chest. "Like a heart?"

"Yeah," Dad said, smiling. "Sorta like a heart."

Steven nodded, satisfied, and returned to his book: ' _Some daemons are big. Some daemons are small. Some daemons fly. Some daemons swim…_ ' Aster listened to him mumbling the words under his breath, barely paying attention as she turned into a puppy shape and let her Dame groom her head.

* * *

Even though the Gems' daemons were invisible hearts or whatever, that didn't stop Steven and Aster from wondering what they actually looked like. It was a fun way to spend the time they were left alone while the Gems were out on missions.

Pearl was probably the easiest to guess. In a fight, she looked like some kind of hawk or falcon, diving super duper fast at her prey. At home she was sorta like a bird too, but a hummingbird, flickering quickly from chore to chore, never resting until everything was clean. But sometimes she would twine an arm around Garnet, or quickly reach out to touch Steven's head, and she kind of reminded Aster of the stray cat which had lived near the arcade and rub against people for treats.

Amethyst was a lot harder. Her daemon might be something big and fierce like a mountain lion! Or something tricky like a fox. Steven thought they'd be a snake, because then her daemon would look like her whip. Aster said that was silly; snakes were too quiet for Amethyst. She had to be something **loud** , like a woodpecker or a bullfrog!

And Garnet was tricky too. In battle she could be like a charging bull, rushing into battle and hitting monsters right in the face! But bulls mostly just seemed to stand around in fields all the time, just eating and stuff, which wasn't really like Garnet at all. So maybe her daemon'd be a gorilla, which were big and super strong… but could also be really gentle, and had strong, clever hands. Or maybe, she'd be an elephant. Their trunks were really clever too. They were large and sweet and took care of their children, just the way Garnet did.

After years and years of whispering and wondering, Steven and Aster couldn't bear the uncertainty anymore. They just asked the Gems outright.

Pearl looked puzzled until Aster explained a little more. Then she gave a little laugh. "Oh, no. It would be utterly illogical for Gem 'souls', as some human philosophers have called daemons, to be bound to the shape of a single Earth life-form."

Aster's bunny-shaped ears drooped.

"Yeah," said Steven, "but if they _were_ , what would yours be?"

"Eh, for once, I agree with Pearl," said Amethyst. "Why be _one_ animal, when I could be _all_ animals?"

With that, she flashed purple and transformed into a hawk. The hawk dived at Aster, who hopped away quickly, and laughing, turned into a hummingbird to dodge. Soon the two were playing one of their favourite games, trying to outplay each others' shapeshifting. Insects, snakes, frogs, birds, cats, anything went. By the time that Amethyst 'won' the game by turning into a net and catching a ferret-shaped Aster inside herself, Steven could barely breathe for laughing.

It was only once he'd caught his breath that he remembered Garnet had never answered.

He looked at her, and it was like she could read his mind, because before he'd even gotten the first word out she said, "Platypus."

"Platy— oh," said Steven. "Uh… why a platypus?"

Garnet shrugged. "I like them."

Steven nodded. That made sense. He liked tigers and dragons and starfish, and when they were all grown up, he hoped Aster might settle as one of them.

And platypuses (pi? podes?) were cool! They could swim and walk on land and they had beaver tails and duck beaks and they sweat milk and had poison spikes on their feet! And there was this awesome show with a platypus secret agent, which Garnet basically was, after all.

Bat-shaped, Aster flew up to Steven and hung from his hair into his ear. She whispered, "I don't think she was being serious."

"Of course she was," Steven whispered back. Daemons were super important. The Gems wouldn't lie about them.

Garnet was cool, and platypuses were cool, so a platypus daemon was as good as anything.


End file.
